Clay's Ark by Octavia E. Butler Read Free Book Online Page A

deadly disease. Yet he was afraid.
    Some of what Meda had said about the disease reminded him of another illness-one he had read about years before. He
    could not remember the name of it. It was something people did not get any longer-something old and deadly that
    people had once gotten from animals. And the animals had gone out of their way to spread it. The name came to him
    suddenly: rabies.
    She watched him silently. "You don't believe me, but you're afraid," she said. "That's a start. There's a lot to be afraid
    of."
    He stifled an impulse to deny his fear or explain it. "You were going to tell me about Eli," he said.
    She nodded. "Remember that ship a few years ago-the Clay's Ark?"
    "The Ark? You mean the starship?"
    "Yeah. Brand new technology, tested all to hell, and it still blew up when it got back from the Centauri system. People
    figured the scientists rushed things so they would have something flashy to keep them from losing their funding again.
    At least, that's what I read. The Ark came down about thirty miles from here. It was supposed to land at one of the
    space stations or on the moon, but it came all the way home. And before it blew up, Eli got out."
    "Eli . . . ? What are you telling me?"
    "His name is Asa Elias Doyle. He was their geologist. In case you haven't noticed, he can drop that dumb accent of his
    whenever he wants to. The disease is from the second planet of Prox-ima Centauri. It killed ten of a crew of fourteen. I
    think more would have lived, but they began by isolating anyone who got sick. Then they found they had to restrain
    them to keep them isolated." She shuddered. "That amounted to slow death by torture.
    "Anyway, four survived to come home. I think they had to come home. The compulsion drove them. But when they
    landed something went wrong. Maybe for once, someone managed to break the compulsion. The ship was destroyed.
    Only Eli managed to get out. But in one way, that didn't matter. He brought Proxi Two back to us as well as a crew of
    fourteen could have. And now . . . now it's as Terran as you or me."
     
     
    PAST 7
     
     
    A few minutes of careful listening told him there were seven people sharing the isolated wood-and-stone house with
    him. There were the two adult sons and a twenty-year-old daughter, who had spent the night in Barstow. There was
    their mother, who had brought food and who had been kind, and the sons' new young wives, who were eager for the
     
     
     
     
    separate houses to be finished. There was the white-haired patriarch of the household -a stern man who believed in an
    outdated, angry God and who knew how to use a shotgun. He reminded himself of this last when he met the daughter.
    Meda, her name was.
    Meda introduced herself by walking into the room he had been given just as he pulled on a borrowed pair of pants. And
    instead of retreating when she saw that he was dressing, she stayed to watch. He was so glad she was not the woman of
    the night before, the woman whose scent had frozen him outside her window, that her brazenness did not bother him.
    This one's scent was far more interesting than a man's would have been, but she had not yet reached that dangerous
    time in her cycle. She was big like her mother-perhaps six feet tall, and stocky where her mother was becoming old-
    woman thin. Meda was brown-haired, heavily tanned, and strong-looking-probably used to hard work.
    She stared at him curiously and was unable to conceal her disappointment at his thin, wiry body. He did not blame her.
    He was disgusted with his appearance himself, though he knew how deceptive it was. He had been good-looking once.
    Women had never been a problem for him.
    This woman, however, was a problem already. Her expression said she recognized him. That was completely
    unexpected- that someone in this isolated place would keep up with current events enough to know what one of
    fourteen astronauts looked like. Unfortunately, his face had changed less than the rest of him. It